What is Courting The Law?

We were recently part of a news coverage that named our Founder, Mr. Taimur Malik as a probable candidate for the interim Federal Cabinet, following which the CTL website received overwhelming online traffic, for which we are grateful. At the same time, the manner in which CTL was described at some places made us realize that some readers were not aware of our full range of activities.

Therefore, for those who are not familiar with our work, here is some information on who we are and what we’ve been up to over the last few years:

Courting The Law is a non-partisan, non-political, Pakistan focused multi-dimensional law and justice initiative that uses various technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution combined with user-friendly technology-enabled platforms and online operational models to improve access to justice and enhance legal services.

We feel that it is also our responsibility to set the pace for which technologies we introduce into the Pakistani legal system so that our lawyers are not forced out of employment altogether.

The flagship website, CourtingTheLaw.com, is Pakistan’s first legal news and analysis portal that aims to serve an underserved population by encouraging legal discourse, raising awareness and increasing accountability through different initiatives. Courting The Law is also Pakistan’s first publication that aims to use and promote gender-neutral language. This website and associated social media pages have continued to grow since inception and have over 0.2 million followers from all corners of Pakistan.

Courting The Law has hundreds of contributors and partner organizations from across Pakistan and beyond. They represent some of the leading universities, newspapers, law firms, civil society organizations, think tanks, government departments as well as other initiatives. These contributors and partners continue to support us in providing a stronger foundation for legal advocacy and legislative reform.

Courting The Law has also established Pakistan’s first National Law Scholars Program which has many students studying at different law colleges across Pakistan. One of our Scholars from Islamabad, Ahmad Farooq, who was part of our first batch, has just been accepted at Harvard Law School for an LLM programme!

We believe in using technology for innovating access to justice and, in addition to the flagship legal media website, we have launched (and are also in the process of launching) multiple technology-enabled platforms, including the following:

Q&A App for smartphones, which allows users to ask legal questions (for free and even anonymously) and get responses from some of the best lawyers in the country. The Android and iOS versions can be downloaded from the app stores by searching for ‘Courting the Law’. We especially encourage young lawyers and law students to sign up and volunteer some of their time responding to legal queries, while we can quantify their pro bono services and legal aid services in terms of the number of responses and credit hours.

Vakeel (currently hosted at Vakeelpk.com) – A verified legal services platform which enables ordinary citizens and corporations to identify and engage relevant lawyers more efficiently and reliably instead of simply relying on word of mouth recommendations, thereby making the hiring process and legal fees more transparent. Users will also be able to subscribe to advanced premium services such as for case follow-up and monitoring.

Qanoon.pk – The online Urdu version of CTL, through which lawyers, law students and other interested parties will be able to access translated legal information. This is under-development at the moment.

Mohtasib.pk – An innovative access to justice platform that uses simple AI and predictive machine learning through which users are able to assess their eligibility and limitation period for filing a complaint with one of the many Ombudspersons in Pakistan and submitting the application online for free.

QanoonX.com – a legal incubator and accelerator that aims to empower law startups and provide legal, technological, financial and entrepreneurial support. It has so far supported the following 3 in-house startups and will be formally inviting more applications this summer:

InsaafCamp.com - Legal aid camps that aim to enhance access to justice and raise awareness regarding the law, via free access to lawyers and legal information in underserved and underprivileged communities across Pakistan, with an additional 24/7 telephone helpline to provide legal guidance and support and an upcoming app that will map legal aid services using an online operational model.